of Lombard Street and Cornhill, men powerful in the twelve great companies, men whom the goldsmiths followed humbly, hat in hand, up and down the arcades of the Royal Exchange, would have been turned with all indignity out of the Court of Aldermen and out of the Common Council. The struggle was for life or death. No exertions, no artifices, were spared. William wrote to Portland that the Whigs of the City, in their despair, stuck at nothing, and that, as they went on, they would soon stand as much in need of an Act of Indemnity as the Tories. Four Tories however were returned, and that by so decisive a majority, that the Tory who stood lowest polled four hundred votes more than the Whig who stood highest.[1] The Sheriffs, desiring to defer as long as possible the triumph of their enemies, granted a scrutiny. But, though the majority was diminished, the result was not affected.[2] At Westminster, two opponents of the Sacheverell clause were elected without a contest.[3] But nothing indicated more strongly the disgust excited by the proceedings of the late House of Commons than what passed in the University of Cambridge. Newton retired to his quiet observatory over the gate of Trinity College. Two Tories were returned by an overwhelming majority. At the head of the poll was Sawyer, who had, but a few days before, been excepted from the Indemnity Bill and expelled from the House of Commons. The records of the University contain curious proofs that the unwise severity with which he had been treated had raised an enthusiastic feeling in his favour. Newton voted for Sawyer; and this remarkable fact justifies us in believing that the great philosopher, in whose genius and virtue the Whig party justly glories, had seen the headstrong and revengeful conduct of that party with concern and disapprobation.[4]
- ↑ William to Portland, Feb. 28/March 10, 1690; Van Citters to the States General, March 4/14; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
- ↑ Van Citters, March 11/21, 1690; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
- ↑ Van Citters to the States General, March 11/21, 1690.
- ↑ The votes were for Sawyer 165, for Finch 141, for Bennet, whom I suppose to have been a Whig, 87. At the University every voter delivers his vote in writing. One of the votes given on this occasion is in the following words, "Henricus Jenkes, ex amore justitiæ, eligit virum consultissimum Robertum Sawyer."
